Smarting About Smart Golf

Jason Logan

Jason Logan

Better from the standpoint of at-the-tip-of-your-fingers access to information, entertainment, assistance and answers. Worse because so many of us have become slaves to our smartphones, remaining able, but often unwilling, to engross in constructive conversations — actual talking that is — without pausing to tweet or text or ask Siri for something.

Naturally, this smart technology, as it’s being called, is immersing itself in golf, a sport that depends and thrives upon innovation more than any other. Portable launch monitors are now commonplace on PGA Tour ranges, spitting out numbers that can help fix a flaw on the spot. There exist smart balls, smart shoes, smart clubs, smart sprays — seriously a smart spray, billed as a superintendent’s dream — smart green-reading systems and smart training aids. Data-driven devices delivering every measurement you could imagine. I even received an email from one entrepreneur hawking digital glasses with augmented reality. Supposedly, they help you achieve various ball flight trajectories through a series of lines that appear in front of your eyes to guide your setup, clubhead position and swing path.

It’s all a little much for me, and I worry that the game is starting to lose some of its mystery. Maybe I’m just a 40-year-old fuddy-duddy, but I’ve always loved trying to solve golf’s puzzle sans tech. Trying to figure out exactly what’s wrong with my swing with a good old-fashion range session. Just me and my clubs and maybe an alignment aid at most. I prefer making in-game adjustments based solely on feel and allowing my ball flight to be the ultimate judge for how I’m hitting it.

Liam Mucklow has tried to convince me otherwise. Now, the PGA of Canada teaching pro and PGA Tour instructor includes ‘Mad Scientist’ as part of his email signature so I take his reasoning with a grain of salt. He explained that all of the smart technology that’s out there is aimed at helping people practise, not play. It’s to help you improve off the course so that you’re better on it, once left to your own, well, devices. OK, but just how long is that going to be the case?

Arccos Golf — with whom Cobra developed Cobra Connect, whereby your exact carry distances with every Cobra King F8 club can be tracked through a small sensor attached to their grips — recently joined with Microsoft to develop an artificial intelligence caddie. The companies collected information and shot data from 40,000 courses around the world so that you could be playing a game and your phone will advise you to hit three-wood instead of driver to avoid a fairway bunker. That’s just to start.

“You can imagine what will be next with all that information cranked into an artificial intelligence engine,” Mike Yagley, the guy leading the smart golf/AI charge for Cobra, told me. He was referring to club selection to preferred layup yardages, even your phone one day begging you off full pitching wedge in favour of that three-quarter nine-iron you hit so well.

His tease was endorsement, but I found it scary. First off, smart golf could one day make club caddies completely obsolete. They are a declining breed, sure, but caddying is still a very good way into the game for youngsters. Second, the thought of playing a match against someone with a smartphone telling him what club to hit on his every turn gives me the heebie-jeebies. Having said that, if I were to take money off that person with some good old-fashion intuition and creativity I’d be pretty darn jazzed about it. “Pay me in Bitcoin, baby!”

The point is that in this endless search to make golf easier, we are taking away some of what makes it sacred. It’s a mental game as much as a physical game, if not more, and at its core, golf can be vexing, unfair and exasperating. That’s why decision-making is so very important and why experiencing a round with few mental mistakes, however rare that is, brings such bliss. Ask yourself: Would you be happy with a great score if a machine was doing much of the thinking for you? I know I wouldn’t.